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Ok, this is a little introduction to the Hacking Culture. Here is a breakdown of the different classes. The cybercultue has become like another community away from real live. In a famous 80s phile "The Hacker Manifesto" it states that we work without race, skincolor, religion, and geographical boundraries. Mentor was true about that, but over the last 5-10 we have developed our own classes and our own way of distingushing who is who. But, unlike the real world our social status is not limited by who we are and how much money we have. The only limitation we have is knowledge, allowing anybody to freely move up the ranks of cyberculture at their own pace and compfort.

-Script KiddieA script kiddie is like a parasite, feeding on somebody elses hard work. Script kiddies most of the time have no idea about how the technology really works but they learned a few commands and downloaded a few programms and exploits and think they can take over the world. A script kiddie is most likely a newbie to the scene and is still learning. Eventhough everybody hates them, this is one of the points where everybody started once upon a time.

-Scene WhoreThese are the people you see in IRC or on webboards who don't have a clue what the [censored] anybody is talking about. They are someimes just around because they feel being a hacker/cracker is cool and at times they can be funny and entertaining. There is nothing wrong with Scene Whores though, because over time they evolve into script kiddies and then move from there to become programmers, network administrators, blackhats, whitehats, etc.

-BlackhatSomebody who cracks into computers and uses any means to take over a certain machine or a whole network. Blackhats are usually looked down on for their poor ethics and, in some cases, script kiddie approach to cracking. A blackhat is like the digital version of the evil ninjas from the 80s movies.

-WhitehatIf the Blackhat is the ninja than the Whitehat would be considered the samurai. These are the guys who scan networks and look for vulnerabilities and then run to tell everybody what they found. Whitehats are an essential part to network security because they do almost the same things as Blackhats just with malicious intent. Sometimes being a whitehat can be risky too. At times companies have sued the whitehat who exposed the vulnerabilities in their software.

-ProgrammerOk, going along with the metaphor pattern, a programmer would be like the "Architect" from the Matrix. They are the ones who created everything you are looking at right now. The text editor I wrote this with, the browser you used to open it, the drivers that make your monitor work etc. Programmers are the real hackers, everybody else just tries to break or fix what they make.

I think it is too late for classifications. Media has made the word hacker synonymous with computer criminal, cracker, pirate, script kiddie, and any type of technological malice.

I would agree with Asteos. There are people who enjoy computers and those who do not. The ones who do not, will tend to be the short-term malicious people who really don't need the respect to be given a title. They will be gone before they establish much anyways. True, there are exceptions, but few and far between.

However, for definitions of those terms, it sounds pretty good to me. Pretty much clears up what the newbies would be called in the various circumstances.